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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Ask David Mullen ANYTHING

Hi David, in http://filmarkivet.se/sv/Film/?movieid=820
What Sven Nykvist is carrying on his neck with the gaffer glass. Looks like a piece of glass, what's the purpose of it? You can see it on 30:01
Thanks
 
Mr Mullen,

First of all, let me say it was an honor to meet you at the ASC open house. We chatted for a bit about Sci Fi literature mostly because I got a little to star struck to ask about cinematography. :-) I was curious about your thoughts on two matters.

1) What is your typical data workflow when shooting RED or is this something you've typically just let the DIT dictate?
2) On a lot of the low-budget shoots (including features) I'm working there is this tendency to combine the 2nd AC and Data Wrangler position and not have an actual DIT. If given the choice to have another grip (with a small G/E crew of 4 - 5 gives) or a DAT, what would you choose? I realize that it's location dependent as well (ie sometimes you need more hands on deck for shaping the light). I guess I'm wondering because in the past, I felt like my 2nd AC would disappear at what felt like all the wrong times because of a drive or computer issue (or because we had to refuel the genies, thus he had to restart and finish copying footage onto our three separate drives), which really slowed us down when it came to lens changes or keeping video village going. I made it clear that his job keeping the data safe was more important to me than having lenses & batteries ready right away, setting marks, keeping great camera logs, or properly slating everything, but it really slowed us down. Thoughts?
 
A full camera package on a regular narrative production needs a 1st and 2nd AC manning it, having the 2nd disappear to either load mags in the days of film or download data is not very efficient. Now whether you need a DIT to manage data or a well-trained former camera loader depends on how complicated your shoot is. Sometimes you hire a DIT to set-up the workflow and data management and then let the camera department take over after a time, it just depends of whether you are doing things like on-set coloring and dailies creation, dealing with multiple formats and camera systems, building LUT's on set, things that require the full-time attention of a DIT. If you are just shooting mostly with one camera system with one look loaded into the camera and monitors, and just need to download and back-up data, then many camera crews can handle that these days as long as they have the manpower.

There are so many ways to set-up a workflow these days that I get involved in prep and sometimes decide that a DIT is required, at least early on in production.
 
Hi David-
My girlfriend had the coolest of news for me today when she got back from work - she told me she met you briefly on the Culver lot! Anyway, just wanted to drop in to say hello and connect the dots.
Hope your shoot is going really well...sounds like it will be a great show from what I have read.
Best,

-Harry
 
Harry Lipnick said:
Hi David-
My girlfriend had the coolest of news for me today when she got back from work - she told me she met you briefly on the Culver lot! Anyway, just wanted to drop in to say hello and connect the dots.
Hope your shoot is going really well...sounds like it will be a great show from what I have read.
Best,

-Harry
Click to expand...

It was nice being recognized on the lot by a "fan"! I'm just in the second week of a six month job but it seems to be going well so far.
 
Hi David, is it possible to do this effect on camera, not post? Of course, I'm talking about Red camera. I tried to play with shutter and fps, but no luck. Thanks



spr13bd.png
 
You'd have to do it in post unless you'd be OK with a streak filter turned vertically, but the effect would't begin at the light source and only move up.

The shot from "Saving Private Ryan" was done with an out of sync shutter, which means that the shutter hadn't completed rotated to a closed position before the movement pulled the film to the next frame. So it's the film moving through the gate while the shutter is partially opening that is causing the vertical smear.
 
David, are you familiar with Masanobu Takayanagi's work? I'm a huge fan of his work, whether on The Grey, or Silver Linings Playbook, or Warrior and Out Of The Furnace. I love most of all that he seems (from what I can gather by watching the movies themselves, and trying to get my hands on as many making ofs & b-rolls as possible) to have a very natural approach with natural lighting most of the time and a lot of immediacy, grit & life to it. Now, I only found one small interview of him, very short, and I can't find anything else on him (that would be recent, like on SLP, or Warrior, etc).

So, if you've seen the movies he's shot that I'm talking about, or if you happen to know him, can you tell me something about his work? Like, I'm trying to know if he uses any diffusion filters, and on his lighting, does he always go for the natural lighting approach with sometimes a little supplement (I saw him on Warrior's b-rolls shooting scenes in daylight with no bounce in sight, so that surprised me)?

Thx a bunch if you can help me there !
 
Alexey Milokost said:
So, you say that it's impossible to reproduce this effect on RED in any way? I'm not talking about post. Thanks
Click to expand...

A digital camera doesn't have film moving through it, so no. Like I said, at best you could turn a anamorphic streak filter vertically if you wanted something in-camera.
 
EMMANUEL DELPECH said:
David, are you familiar with Masanobu Takayanagi's work? I'm a huge fan of his work, whether on The Grey, or Silver Linings Playbook, or Warrior and Out Of The Furnace. I love most of all that he seems (from what I can gather by watching the movies themselves, and trying to get my hands on as many making ofs & b-rolls as possible) to have a very natural approach with natural lighting most of the time and a lot of immediacy, grit & life to it. Now, I only found one small interview of him, very short, and I can't find anything else on him (that would be recent, like on SLP, or Warrior, etc).

So, if you've seen the movies he's shot that I'm talking about, or if you happen to know him, can you tell me something about his work? Like, I'm trying to know if he uses any diffusion filters, and on his lighting, does he always go for the natural lighting approach with sometimes a little supplement (I saw him on Warrior's b-rolls shooting scenes in daylight with no bounce in sight, so that surprised me)?

Thx a bunch if you can help me there !
Click to expand...

I haven't seen any of those films yet, sorry.
 
Gareth Ng said:
Hi David,

I was wondering if you could take a look at my reel from last year and tell me what you think/give me some advice from what you can see. I'm 15 years old, almost 16 and making images is a great passion of mine. Anyway here it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1r_ek18sLg
Click to expand...

David's opinion is more important than mine, and you didn't ask for mine, but I can't help but comment by saying that you have an amazing natural gift. I can only imagine what you will do after more years of experience. If one day I hear you decided not to pursue filmmaking it would make me very sad - and I hope that day never comes. Your parents must be overwhelmed with pride at your abilities.
 
Hello David,

If you had only one filter to use to make the images from a Digital Cinema Camera look more like film negative
what filter would you use?

In the past I have always used Black Pro Mists on video cameras to make the images
look more like film, but there are a lot of new filters out there now, so I an unsure.
 
Thanks David. Shall try those out.
 
Buying a H16 Bolex and neglecting to open the loop former and having a damaged camera door will do it for you. A good door has donkeytraps built in which prevent it from closing if the guides are set wrongly. The irregular effect of a mistimed pulldown might be achieveable by shooting through a large rotating glass cube in a slotted rotating cylinder, in effect a prism shutter as used on old film editing machines and apparently on some extreme high speed film cameras. A defect of the prism shutter system is that of the image appearing, then slifting slightly in a vertical direction, stabilising and clarifying, then shifting again before the next frame comes into view.

It would have to be driven by a motor slaved to a crystal sync source or frame rate extracted electronically from the camera and geared to drive the prism shutter at one quarter rpm speed of the frame rate. By slowing the actual shutter speed of the camera down to allow motion blur, some vertical smear of highlights and general vertically oriented degrading of the image might be achieved as in effect the same defect, smearing of the image across the frame vertically is occurring. For it to be the most realistic, the "lead-in" image shift from the prism shutter would have to be eliminated by camera electronic shutter offset timing ( synchro-scan?? ) so that only the departing image shift is detected.

The only practical place for the prism with the Red camera family is between lens and subject. It would have to be huge and I have my doubts it would work without a LOT of research and development.
 
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